


Never Let Me Go

by WildWolf25



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Culture Shock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Look Nico was born in the 30s and not enough people talk about that, M/M, Nightmares, Percico Summer Event 2019, Period-Typical Homophobia, time culture shock... if that's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildWolf25/pseuds/WildWolf25
Summary: Nico slid his legs out of bed and put his feet down on the cool wooden floor.  Moonlight filtered in through the bedroom window, the white slats of the blinds chopping the pale glow into lines across his floor, his legs, his feet… With the sight, paired with the dream he had just woken from, he couldn’t help but think of bars.  Nico looked to where Percy was sleeping soundly on his half of the bed, completely at peace in a way that Nico could never be, even when he tried.(Written for week 4 of the Percico Summer Event 2019)





	Never Let Me Go

**Author's Note:**

> **CONTENT WARNING: This work contains wrangling with internalized homophobia and remembering period-typical homophobia. Please tread carefully or don't read if you think that will make you uncomfortable. Thank you.**

_Looking up from underneath, fractured moonlight on the sea,_

_Reflections still look the same to me, as before I went under._

_And it's peaceful in the deep cathedral where you cannot breathe,_

_No need to pray, no need to speak,_

_Now I am under, oh..._

_And it's breaking over me, a thousand miles down to the sea bed_

_Found a place to rest my head. Never let me go, never let me go..._

("In the Arms of the Ocean" by Florence + the Machine)

~~~~~~~

* * *

Nico slid his legs out of bed and put his feet down on the cool wooden floor. Moonlight filtered in through the bedroom window, the white slats of the blinds chopping the pale glow into lines across his floor, his legs, his feet… With the sight, paired with the dream he had just woken from, he couldn’t help but think of bars. Nico looked to where Percy was sleeping soundly on his half of the bed, completely at peace in a way that Nico could never be, even when he tried. 

He felt off-kilter. Unbalanced. Like this was wrong, even though he knew that times had changed and the world was not the same place he had known when he had stepped into the Lotus Hotel and Casino. 

_ This isn’t normal… _

It is, he told himself. Frankly, it was more normal than the ability to travel via shadow, and yet he could do that too. Normal was relative. 

_ It’s unnatural…  _

Perfectly natural, he knew. Lots of people were like this, even if they had been buried and hidden throughout history. Lots of animals, too. Like that cute couple of penguins Percy had showed him the video of, the ones who zookeepers even gave an egg to so they could raise together. 

_ Sick in the head… mentally ill…  _

He had ADHD -- he wasn’t dim. He had dyslexia -- he wasn’t stupid. And as for the other thing… 

_ You don’t belong here… Not in this world, or in this time…  _

He-- 

He didn’t actually have a comeback for that. He really  _ didn’t  _ belong here. 

_ Shameful. Perverted. Wrong. _

No, no, no. Nico raked his hands through his hair and took a deep breath, willing the thoughts away. It was hard. He had grown up during a time when holding hands could get you arrested, when ‘sexual deviants’ were locked away in institutions, when magazine adverts sold devices for at-home electrotherapy to  _ ‘reinforce correct sexual preference’ _ alongside watches and microwaves (themselves a new invention). He had known all of these things even before he himself felt the first stirrings of attraction in his heart. He had been just a child when he was brought to the Lotus Casino, and when he came out of that place… The world was different. Everyone had a microwave, now. There were fifty states. The war that had been brewing was over and just a distant memory, something people learned about in textbooks. He had missed the invention of the computer. The moon landing. Color television… 

The riot. The protests. The epidemic. Decriminalization. When “shame” turned into “pride.” It had all happened without his knowledge, while he stayed suspended in the Lotus Hotel, never aging in body even as the world marched on outside. That day when Cupid forced him to lay his feelings and inner torment bare, Nico had been terrified -- not just that Jason would be disgusted by him, but that he could have him arrested or even killed. Somehow, while Camp Half-Blood had been eager to catch him up on things like cell-phones and fashion and music, no one had thought to mention that being attracted to the same sex was no longer illegal. He genuinely hadn’t known, until Jason patiently explained how things were different now, on a walk back from the ruins that seemed to have lasted as many years as Jason tried to summarize the history of. Even he had admitted he didn’t know how or when things had changed --  _ “they still don’t teach these things in schools… They ought to, but they don’t. I just know that being gay isn’t illegal, or considered a mental illness anymore. New York even passed a marriage equality act, and in a few years it might even become a national thing…” _

Nico hadn’t believed him at the time (it felt like just yesterday he was catching sight of a newspaper featuring mugshots of ‘deviants’ arrested for ‘unnatural acts’ while the Fury Alecto ushered them off to the Lotus Hotel), and he had still been confused -- to him a few years later, but to the world, some eighty-odd years later -- when an Aphrodite camper stood up with a rainbow flag tied around their shoulders like a cape and excitedly announced that marriage equality had passed nation-wide, to the cheers of everyone at the dining pavilion. To be perfectly honest, he hadn’t even know what the rainbow flag had symbolized. There hadn’t been symbols like that, when he was growing up. The only identifying symbols during the era he had grown up were the pink triangle, and that… that had been a death sentence, not a symbol of pride. It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that such symbols had been reclaimed in the past decades. In fact, the words that he had heard whispered by gossipers and emblazoned across newspaper crime pages… those had been deemed ‘slurs’, then reclaimed, then cast aside in favor of entirely new words, all creating a dizzying lexicon with intertwined history that he had missed. 

There was so much about this world that he still didn’t understand. And what he did understand, felt like a dream -- something too good to be true, that would get snatched away as soon as he dared to reach for it. Even something as ‘simple’ as acceptance felt too hard to believe in. 

He had been born into a time when the threat of being killed weighed over him like a stone ready to drop at any time, from the time he first realized he had feelings for men and not women. And not even time could chip away at that weight, nor the knowledge that things were different now. Sometimes, it did, a little bit. But it always came back, as heavy as ever, sitting on his chest and leaving him paralyzed by fear. It was one of the reasons he had avoided Camp for so long; he didn't fit in, not just because he was a son of Hades, but because he didn't fit in with this time period, with this world that everyone else was used to. He was an outcast of time itself.  


Nico leaned his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, raking his fingers through his hair as he sucked in a deep breath to try and calm his frantically beating heart.  _ The heart that shouldn’t be beating at all _ , that voice inside him piped up…

Behind him, Percy rolled over with a sleepy sound. Nico went still, hoping that he would stay asleep. He didn’t want to bother Percy, or show this side of himself to him. 

No such luck, though. “Mm. Hey, you okay?” A hand reached for him and touched his back. 

Nico nodded, hoping desperately that Percy would buy it and go back to sleep. He forgot just who he was dealing with, though. 

“Nightmare?” Percy asked. His palm smoothed a warm path between Nico’s shoulders. 

Nico nodded again, because it was easier than explaining the truth. And, it had started with a nightmare, after all. 

“Is it okay to touch you? Or no?” Percy asked, his hand going still between Nico’s shoulder blades. Sometimes, touch was too much for him to handle. Sometimes arms around him felt crushing and restrictive. Other times, they might be the only thing holding him together. Right now, Nico ached to feel the warmth of Percy’s body beside him, around him, shielding him and reassuring him in that way that Percy was so good at. But… 

Nico shook his head. He wanted to sob when Percy took his hand away, but instead, he bit his lip and murmured “I don’t deserve it.” 

“Oh. Oh...” This first word was short and flat -- a realization -- and the second was heavy with emotion. There was a sound like shifting cloth as Percy sat himself up and slid closer to him. The hand was back, along with an arm around the back of his shoulders, and Percy pressed himself close to Nico’s side. “Hey. Can you talk to me?” 

He  _ wanted _ to, but there was just too much he wanted to say. It all rushed up in his chest like seawater flooding a breakwall, and he couldn’t get any of the words out for several minutes. The whole time, Percy stayed beside him with an arm wrapped around him, holding him close until he was ready to speak the words aloud. 

“I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t be here.” Nico whispered. 

“Hm. It’s night-time, so you should be asleep.” Percy offered gently, rubbing his arm. He softened his voice. “But that’s not what you mean, right?” 

“I should be in Hell.” 

Percy’s hand stopped mid-rub, shocked for a moment. Then his hand slid down Nico’s arm and he pulled him close in a hug. 

“Was it Tartarus? In your nightmare?” Percy asked carefully. He and Annabeth were the only ones that knew the depth of what Nico had been through down there. The heat, the pain, the sacrifice, the despair… it haunted all of their dreams, even now. But it hadn’t for Nico on this night. 

He shook his head. “Not Tartarus.” He said. It was part of it, though. That same little voice that called him  _ disgusting, inhuman, unnatural, a sinner… _ it was the same voice that whispered that his hubris had not been the thing that had gotten him dragged into Tartarus -- it was  _ him _ , who he was as a person.  _ What  _ he was. Who he dared to love. 

Percy was quiet for a few minutes as he thought about it. Nico had told him about his struggle before, and while he knew Percy was sympathetic, he could never truly understand the full weight of it. He had been born into a time when it was okay to be this way (it wasn’t perfect, but it was a world different than when Nico had grown up). 

Percy squeezed his shoulders in a hug. “You know, you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Have I told you that?”

Nico let out a short, humorless bark of a laugh. “Right. That’s why I’m unable to sleep in the middle of the night. Because I’m strong.” 

“No.” Percy told him. “That’s why you’re still  _ here _ . You’ve had so many forces stacked against you, Nico, and you’ve survived all of them. You’re courageous and strong and brave and kind, and I’m so proud of you. Even on the days when you aren’t proud of yourself, I still think the world of you. And I always will.” Percy leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, soft and chaste and reassuring more than outright romantic. But that was just what Nico needed, at that moment. 

He drew in a deep, shaky breath and released it slowly. The voice in his head had grown quiet, for now. It would be back, he knew. But Percy would always be there, and the friends he had made at Camp Half Blood and Camp Jupiter. And knowing that made the weight a little lighter, even if only for a little while. 

Nico turned to catch his lips in a proper kiss. Sometimes kissing felt like an act of rebellion, something they dared to display in defiance of the world against them. Other times, it felt simple. Like it was just for them. And now, with Percy’s arms guiding him back to bed and holding him close, it felt safe. As long as he had these arms around him, he could face anything -- even the darkness that lurked inside him. 

**Author's Note:**

> This pride month was the 50th anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall Inn. I’ve seen a lot of people reflecting on how much some things have changed (and how some things have not) in the past fifty years, or even the past ten years. And it’s true; it makes me happy and proud that kids today can explore their identity with more freedom and information than in the past, while at the same time, it’s a little bittersweet thinking how things might have been different if I had had that when I was growing up. So part of this is inspired by that. It’s also inspired by the fact that something that has always been on my mind but seldom gets explored in the HoO universe or fanfiction, is that Nico (and Hazel) were born in such a different time period than they live in now. What was that transition like? How did they cope with such a radical world change, seemingly overnight for them? I feel like that always kinda gets glazed over -- like Nico just walked out of the Lotus Hotel and Casino and threw on a pair of jeans that hadn’t been invented in his time and a band t-shirt for a genre of music that he surely never would have heard of, and just rolled with it? I think not... 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading this! Please let me know if you liked it, I love hearing feedback from people! I also have a [tumblr](http://goldleeaf.tumblr.com) if you'd like to follow me there. Thanks for reading!


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